(It’s just too easy to make puns on the word “whey.”) After my first cheese-making session, I was left with a fair bit of whey – a little more than a litre of it. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to use it, so I stashed it in the fridge until I could […]

So far, all the cocktail syrups I’ve discussed in my Summer Syrup Series have come from the classic bartending tradition. Today’s, however, is drawn from an altogether different branch of the mixological family tree: Tiki drinks. The Tiki tradition calls on a wide array of different syrups, from plain old simple syrup to orgeat to […]

For my first real homemade cheese, I decided to make fresh (that is, unaged) chèvre. There were a couple of reasons for this. First, cow’s milk production here is heavily regulated by the Dairy Farmers of Ontario, which makes it difficult to find a small-scale, independent cow’s milk producer. Goat’s milk and sheep’s milk are […]

On Friday, my cheese starter culture (“mesophilic aromatic B”), rennet and cheese molds arrived from Glengarry Cheesemaking and Dairy Supply. On Saturday, I picked up some River’s Edge goat milk at the Guelph Farmers’ Market. The nice thing about a farmers’ market is that, when I asked about the pasteurization temperature, I could actually get […]

I have no personal connections to the Caribbean, but some flavours are bigger than their borders. Jerk sauce is one of those flavours. I do have a strong connection to jerk chicken, though, because it was one of the first dishes I ever cooked for my husband. I was living on my own in a […]

For years, the only way I’d ever experienced squid was in its fried form – a form that has long been a favourite of mine and my husband’s. So I still remember the first time I ever had grilled squid, because it was so different from my previous experiences and so, so delicious. It was […]

I would be remiss in allowing to pass unremarked the end of the famous elBulli in its incarnation as a restaurant: its final service was this past Saturday night. Although I sadly never had the opportunity to dine at the restaurant, which was ranked number 1 in the world for 5 of the past 10 […]